“The executions begin”: the dramatic testimony of the director who traveled to Kabul to shoot a documentary and now lives surrounded by armed Taliban

Jorge says he is undecided: he does not know if he should stay Afghanistan finish the documentary on the religion he had started filming and “be part of the story”, or flee as quickly as possible and get to safety. This 55-year-old Chilean documentary maker arrived in Afghanistan two weeks ago and witnessed the “Surreal, frenetic and unstoppable advance of the Taliban”.

In a communication with TN.com.ar which occurred in batches due to the comings and goings of his hotel’s Wi-Fi signal in central Kabul, Said explained that he had traveled to record a new episode of his documentary series on spirituality and religion In search of god, which broadcasts the American channel Historical channel, when he encountered the fall of Ashraf Ghani’s government and the entry of the Taliban into the capital without even a hit.

Said first went to the city of Herat (west) and then to Kandahar (south), the Taliban stronghold from where they ruled the country 20 years ago and imposed a terror regime. During these 15 days, he saw “how the conflict turned into something surreal, the frantic and unstoppable advance” of the Taliban. “Everyone was sure Kabul was not going to go so fast, it’s a city of nearly five million people. It was a crazy thing, ”he insisted.

Kabul looks like another city

From one day to another, “everything changed” and the situation in the capital is “Very disturbing”. “The Taliban are patrolling everywhere. “These are militias responding to private leaders, that’s why it’s very scary, they can be kind as well as ruthless“he claimed.

According to Said, his hotel has been under the control of militiamen since Monday. regulate inputs and outputs and they searched the rooms.

The arrival of the Taliban also led to unusual scenes, like the videos that have gone viral of gunmen playing in bumper cars at an amusement park. “They come down from the mountain and here they find a big city, they are amazed, they take pictures,” Said said.

For his documentaries, Saïd has filmed in several “at risk” countries, such as Syria or Iraq. In your opinion, foreigners “are not targeted by the Taliban at the moment, beyond the concern of knowing if they will let us leave the country without knowing what they are going to do ”. Although he noticed a certain hatred towards the Americans, for the way they handled his departure from the country. “No one has seen them, they are only at the airport, they have already lost the embassy,” he said.

The Chilean documentary filmmaker believes that the fall of the Ghani government, which fled to the United Arab Emirates, was inevitable since due to corruption no soldiers were prepared to die for it. “In these 20 years Afghan politicians have stolen any amount of money, nobody wants it. The biggest problem is the amount of sophisticated weapons that fell into the hands of the Taliban after the Americans left and the army was dismantled ”. I consider.

Since last sunday Kabul looks like another city. Most businesses close as soon as the sun goes down and in stores “they play religious music, which has never happened before ”.

also started revenge to those who were in government or worked with foreign forces: “They start with executions, looking for people door to door. On the one hand there is a message of friendship but on the other we do not know how they will act ”.

A few days ago, Said visited camps for refugees and people displaced by the internal conflict and said the desperation was palpable. “In the refugee camps they jump on you for money”.

For women “what is happening is a drama”

One of the things that worries the world the most is what what will happen to women in Afghanistan. When they ruled between 1996 and 2001, the Taliban They were prohibited from working, studying and even going out without being accompanied by a male family member. Women accused of adultery were whipped and stoned in the streets. And they were forced to wear the burqa, that veil that covers the whole body from head to toe.

Repression and self-censorship began as soon as the Taliban arrived in Kabul. Suddenly “All women wear the burqa” -whose price has skyrocketed in stores-, while a few days ago we could see women “dressed in western clothes walking alongside others with burqas,” Said said.

The Taliban could also be seen tearing up posters with women or painting women’s faces in the windows of beauty salons. “It’s a radical, pathetic change, a total obscurantism“, I consider.

The journalist said he was able to interview “concert artists who spent 18 years studying instruments that will now be considered heretics” as well as athletes, journalists, activists and activists and “They all showed terrible horror” and they had the same speech: “what is happening is a drama”.

A possible civil war

Said believes that the situation “can evolve into civil war “ “There are ethnic minorities who think about arming themselves. They will not accept an emirate led by a Pashtun mullah, ”he supposed.

He also stressed that in the north, in the Panshir region, the fight against the Taliban is being prepared. Former First Vice President Amrullah Saleh and Ahmad Masud, the son of Commander Masud – the hero of the national resistance assassinated in 2001 by Al Qaeda – have already announced that they will take up arms and they asked for international help. “They are powerful warriors, on a par with the Taliban. I guess the assault will come from there, ”he said.

The Panshir Valley, northeast of Kabul, is not under Taliban control, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has confirmed. But that does not mean that it is the scene of fighting. “Resistance is verbal for now, because the Taliban did not seek to enter Panshir, ”he told the news agency AFP Gilles Dorronsoro, Afghanistan specialist.

“The Taliban built their victory on a blitzkrieg and a surrender, and they did it without too much violence,” says Dorronsoro. “A frontal attack on the Panshir with all its symbolic weight would go against their will to normalize” their movement, he added.

With empty chests In a country heavily dependent on economic aid from Western powers, the future of the Taliban regime will largely depend on the links it can establish with its neighbors.

“The Taliban are not so isolated, they have the backing of Pakistan and ChinaSaid said. “The Pakistani intelligence service (ISI) is playing a destabilizing role in Afghanistan, it acts freely with its own agenda and has a lot of power,” he said.

One of the factors that may decide the length of Said’s stay in Afghanistan is precisely money. Banks are closed and liquidity is low. “There is no single weight. ATMs do not work. This puts us on the brink of crisis. Soon I won’t be able to pay for the hotel, in many places they don’t take a card, ”he said.

However, your next destination is far from being a seaside resort. “As soon as I can get out of here, I continue to Iraq, Baghdad and then Mosul, where the conflict with ISIS continues to show this part of the story.”